In
1936 he was sent to New Zealand to assist with the creation ofa Royal New Zealand Air Force independent of the Army, which took place
on 1 January 1937 with Cochrane as it's Chief of Staff.He had always been an advocate of precision bombing wherever possible and
as AOC 5 Group he gained a reputation for this type of work, one of his first
tasks at No 5 Group wasto
supervise the execution of the ‘Dams Raid’ in May 1943.Continuing to utilize 617 Sqn in the precision bombing/marking role, he
often found himselfin conflict
with AVM Don Bennett in command ofNo
8 Group, 'The Pathfinders'.In the
end Cochrane, thanks to 617, proved that precision targets could be attacked
successfully, even to the point of Harris moving squadrons from 8 to 5 Group to
boost Cochrane's marking force.As
AOC in C, Transport Command, he became very conscious of the high accident rate
in the Command and set about remedying the situation by stepping up the training
and by giving accident prevention a much higher profile.Transport Command became the first command in the RAF to start the specialization
of pilots on one type of aircraft a move which greatly reduced
the accident rate during the Berlin Airlift in 1948 - 49.Following retirement he entered the business world, holding a number of
appointments including those of Managing Director of Atlantic Shipbuilding Co.
(1953 - 56), Rolls Royce Ltd. (1956 - 61) and Chairman of RJM Exports Ltd.
(1962) and Cochrane's of Oxford Ltd. (1973 - 1977).